Senate votes to strip Planned Parenthood of funding, cripple Obamacare

Republicans lack a two-thirds House and Senate majority to override a White House veto but believe their support of the bill will help GOP candidates in next year’s presidential and congressional elections.

The legislation was approved by 52 votes to 47.

Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, also praised the Senate’s approval of the legislation that would transfer taxpayer Medicaid money from Planned Parenthood to health care clinics that do not perform abortions.

The vote gives Republicans their first real chance of putting an Obamacare repeal bill onto the president’s desk, which would allow them to make campaign claims that they finally passed legislation to kill the program.

“What we are doing is listening to our constituents, who’ve told us that they’ve had one bad experience after another with Obamacare”, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, said according to The Washington Times. “Most Americans are still opposed to this unprecedented expansion of government intrusion into health care because it represents nothing more than broken promises, higher costs, and fewer choices”.

Last night in a historic vote, the U.S. Senate passed a reconciliation bill that guts major portions of Obamacare and bars Planned Parenthood from receiving Federal tax dollars in Medicaid reimbursements. All Senate Republicans except Senators Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Susan Collins (R-ME) voted for the measure. Bernie Sanders was absent for the vote.GOP lawmakers suggested the bill could serve as a bridge to a new Republican health care law. McConnell said Thursday that the Affordable Care Act is “punctuated with hopelessness”, as he blamed it for rising medical costs and problems encountered by Kentuckians.

Critics of the organization, many of whom seek to outlaw abortion in the United States, have falsely accused Planned Parenthood of selling fetal organs and body parts for profit following the release of secretly recorded videos by an anti-abortion activist in July. “Thousands come to us for care every year for services like breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control, STD/STI tests – and for many we are the only provider they will see all year”, said Jessica Cler, the group’s public affairs manager for Alaska. In a rare moment of bipartisanship, Senators adopted by voice vote an amendment that would permanently repeal the so-called Cadillac tax on high deductible health plans, instead of delaying it until 2025. The House passed its version of reconciliation in October, but the Senate bill is more sweeping in its repeal provisions.